Breaking Down the Shyness

If you are a fanfiction author, or a writer in general, you know those times where you are trying to figure out the next step in your current work, and suddenly you go down the rabbit hole of crazy ideas that don't fit your current project but that are totally awesome and deserve a story of their own? Yup, that's the case with this one.

Rated T for the time being, will go up when this starts to get more "lemony". Those chapters will have a warning for those teenagers that shouldn't (but still are and will continue) reading M rated fanfiction.

I already know where this is going for the fourth and fifth year of Hogwarts, after that I'm not sure. I might try to stick to the canon, or I might go AU. How much? Depends on your feedback.

Chapter one: OMG Dragons!

"Dragons" Harry repeated to himself as he walked towards the library. Just the day before, Hagrid had revealed the first task of the Tri-Wizard tournament to Harry. Needless to say, that Harry was in a bit of a "state" ever since then.

Of course, he had already told Hermione about that, and normally she'd be the one dragging his arse to the library, but she had classes for most of the morning and he did not. One of the few perks of being a contestant in the tournament were that he was able to skip whatever classes he felt he needed to, to prepare himself for the challenges.

Being free from classes didn't really offer any consolation in his case. He'd much rather face Snape than to actually face a dragon.

He practically dragged his feet all the way to a seat in the library, one of the quieter spots in the whole room, and one of the preferred ones by Hermione. Along the way, he'd picked up some books that at first glance seemed to be about dragons. He didn't really know what he was actually looking for, so he set off to read all of them.

To his fortune, most 'topical' books written by wizards were fairly concise and 'on topic', although most of them were filled by mannerisms and word choices unique to the author, especially in the more 'old' texts that didn't go through and editor or a publisher.

So even if the books were concise and focused solely on the topic needed, Harry had a hard time deciphering some of the text. Especially bothersome were the one's written in older English.

Although he had made good progress, he was feeling exhausted by the time that Hermione finally charged into the library. Of course, she had brought her own selection of books and articles. Thankfully, she had already read most of them at some point in the past.

"You look terrible Harry" was the first thing she said after she was done sorting through the reading material both of them had collected.

"Thanks" harry muttered sarcastically as he stretched his arms and shoulders and laid back onto his seat.

"Dragons… what were they thinking?!" She said, incredulous as she furiously scanned through a bestiary. Harry just shrugged; he was done trying to figure out wizards and their customs and he just went with the flow in most occasions. What unsettled Harry the most however was how eager were his schoolmates to potentially see one of their own die in a challenge.

With another stretch he stood up and told Hermione that he was going to look more closely in the library for anything that could help him. In a very Hermione-like fashion she nodded without looking at him while scribbling notes in a roll of parchment.

Harry took to wandering through the rows of bookcases of the library, occasionally picking a book and briefly scanning through it. There didn't seem to be anything useful at first glance. There was plenty about the anatomy and psychology of dragons, but nothing about how to fight or trick one.

It wasn't particularly late then, and the library had been filling up with other students. The ones Harry stumbled upon either shot him a nasty glare or just ignored him. It was mostly fine with Harry since his popularity amongst his classmates wasn't a particular high priority topic at that moment to him.

It was when he was about to head back to pick up some of the books that had seemed more useful that he stumbled upon a weird sight.

He was at the other end of the library, very near one of the other private tables. Hermione didn't use that one much since it was still very open in her opinion; especially since most of the stuff that the trio had gotten up to in past years was best researched without prying eyes.

But for any other student that spot was perfect for a quiet study session or even to just hang out and sneak a couple of quick snogs.

A couple of snogging teenagers wasn't what Harry had stumbled upon however. Instead it was a blond teenager that everybody in the school had at least heard about. Daphne Greengrass, the Ice Queen was sitting there on her own, immersed into a book, and giggling.

That was enough to off put anyone who had heard of the girl's reputation, but perhaps what was more interesting to Harry was that she didn't even have her tie one, or her usual ponytail or even her permanent blank expression.

In fact her blue eyes seemed to even shine as she read a particularly exciting part.

That was odd, but to Harry, for some reason, found enjoyment in seeing the usually uptight witch so, relaxed.

Of course, he'd been staring and she didn't take too long to feel watched.

Her eyes darted away from her book and landed onto his. For a second, she did nothing but stare back, however, her eyes began to widen and in a small blush tinged her cheeks. In the blink of an eye Harry saw her expression morph back into the perfect example of stoicism that she usually wore. Her eyes became dull and uncaring, although Harry could have sworn that her cheeks were still pink-er than usual.

"Can I help you with anything, Potter?" She asked, her voice dull and cold.

That was another weird thing that Harry could recall about her. Even though she was in Slytherin and could often be seen hanging around with Draco Malfoy, she had never been anything but cordial to him. Granted, his interactions with her were few and far in between, but she had done nothing to earn his animosity in the past, unlike a good portion of the Slytherin house.

"Nothing" He said quickly "Just wondering what you were reading" He had the sense not to mention how different she had seemed while reading it.

She glanced down for a second, as if she had forgotten she had been doing something before he sowed up. She picked up the book and showed the cover to Harry.

"Memoirs of Monsieur d'Artagnan" she said once the cover was in full display. She then set it back on the table and continued to look at Harry expectantly.

Feeling a little bit intimidated by her blank stare Harry ruffled his hair uncomfortably "Um, is it any good?" he asked the first thing that came to his mind.

She glanced down at the book and then back at Harry, who could have sworn he saw the corners of her mouth tug upwards a little.

"One of my favourites" she said.

Harry nodded, and asked the next question he could come up with "Do you know anything about Dragons?"

Harry thought she seemed a little bit startled by the question but nodded and stood up, her façade unbroken as she did so.

She didn't say anything or gave any indication of emotion, but she headed all the way down a row of bookshelves and picked up a book without looking twice, then she came back to harry and handed it to him.

"T-thanks!" Harry stuttered, not having expected any help from her. "Why is she not looking at me in the eyes?"

For a second, Harry thought she might be embarrassed, but he had no idea why she would, so he dismissed the idea.

"You're welcome" she said and went back to her seat. He watched her pack up and eventually leave the library. As she walked away from him, his eyes refused to leave her. When she was out of sight, he muttered to himself: "Lovely bottom" before blushing a little bit.

Shaking his head, he looked at the book she had handed him, it was titled "How to deal with dragons" by Arcturus Greengrass